A Timely Printer Tip

A Timely Printer Tip

I can’t tell you how many emails we’ve received over the years about printers that suddenly stop working – or printers that suddenly disappear from the Printers dialog in Windows.

About 3 weeks ago, my internet was down for about 3 hours. When the internet came back up, my wireless printer showed Offline. And after playing with it (wasting time) I just reverted to my tried and true way – learned in the school of hard knocks.

And what did I learn?

I’ve learned over the course of time – and after about a dozen printers – the the fastest way to fix a misbehaving or “offline” wireless printer, is to power off the printer, remove the printer in Settings or Control Panel, and restart the computer. Then download the printer installation software from the manufacturer’s site (and be careful with this, there are a lot of fake sites and scam sites out their offering printer drivers) and reinstall your old printer just like you would had purchased a new printer. Works like a charm… 99% of the time.

Anyway, things get busy around here and I forgot all about writing up a tip about this – and then today thanks to Ron, I was reminded about the tip that never got written.

Ron’s Printer Tip

“Northern New Jersey has been having numerous short power outages witch affects Optonline and possibly other internet providers. It knocked out my Epson printers and scanners which required me to delete my printer, scanner, fax and separate scanner.

I then had to download the setups to reinstall the units. And then I had to make sure that all the household laptops and cell phones that use the printer had the correct printer designation listed.

This probably happens in other areas of the country when the printer is never turned off. In households where you have a number of users, it is not an option to turn the printer off. Remember, when your printer doesn’t work, it does not always mean that you have to buy a new printer. Just try to delete it and reinstall it first.”

Thanks so much, Ron. We are so glad you sent this tip!

Printer problems can happen when you have a power outage too. We hope this tip will help those of you have had problems with your printers related to power or internet outages.

And, THANKS to Ron for sending his tip. If you have a tip, trick, or freeware pick to share,just let us know!

3 thoughts on “A Timely Printer Tip”

Actually the word in Control Panel and Settings is “Remove”. In Windows 10 Settings > Devices > Printers and scanners when you click on a printer the option says “remove device”. The word uninstall to me means running some kind of uninstaller (like a program). Delete and remove mean basically the same thing – to get rid of. Both Ron and I use the word “delete” but officially, Microsoft says “Remove” – whatever the word, it works the same.

I’m too old to remember details now, but my cheap laser printer went bonkers, so I tried all this stuff you tell about.
To reinstall, I connected it to my APC/UPS and it blew off that device every time I tuned the power on the printer.
So I conclude the laser printer’s electronics got shorted out, and now that printer is headed for the trash truck.
Fortunate for me, my cheap inkjet printer works as good as new. Ha. And nowadays I only print 5-6 pages a week.